Gates Of Horn And Ivory
by Xiphilina
Summary: With Edward gone, Bella can't sleep easy. But when a dream she can't wake up from turns the tables on her, she's forced to consider what she would do in the same circumstances. But with a body whose desires she can't yet control...
1. Black Acres

A.N.: Slight AU (but not AH), and I'm positive this has been done SO MANY TIMES before, but I had to get the plotbunny out. This is set during _New Moon_, in the time they spent apart, and if you've ever had depression/sleep issues, it might be triggering, just for forewarning. Thanks for reading!

This chapter is PG-13, for themes, but it might end up M.

* * *

It was difficult to move my bones, to get out of bed at all. Either my body was too heavy or I felt too weak - and when I couldn't sleep, I laid there limply, too feeble to move my fingers. I couldn't sleep very much, but I could pretend.

I don't know how I even did this before. _(Before I met him.)_ I'd sleep and wake up and get up and dress myself, wash my hair, eat breakfast like _nothing in the world was wrong_. Working on automatic. It was simple, I guess I was just too stupid to think there was anything else to do with myself - get dressed, go to school, sit in classes, come home, and back to bed. There had been something to look forward to, a class party on the 19th or summer break, birthdays or movies or going out with my friends, something... something had kept me going. I couldn't remember what it was.  
I couldn't remember how to get to sleep. And I wouldn't dream about _him._ Wouldn't let myself, not again, not unless I wanted to wake up screaming and sick. The red lights on my nightstand's clock said 3:49.

_(It's Friday night - no, Saturday morning, and you're living dangerously, Bella Swan. Getting lots and lots of action, no wonder you look so tired in the morning. You're having _so _much fun. What kind of teenage girl _are _you? The boring kind, obviously. __**So**__ boring. No personality. Nothing but books. All hollow.__  
__  
__Maybe, just maybe you should get some sleep.)__  
__  
_Why freaking bother?, I thought, yanking the sheets up higher and yanking a handful of my hair with it, to chastise myself.

I had bad dreams as a kid. You know the ones I mean - they're night terrors, straining your voice in your sleep to scream and scream and scream until you wake up, and the first noise out of your mouth is a strangled cry that wakes up the whole house. The dream itself was - maybe inane, there were no monsters in these dreams, and sometimes no people. They went away as I got older, but I went to a sleep therapist for a little while. Curling up on a big plastic-wrapped bed hardly made for sweet dreams, but the nurses were nice and there was a dreamcatcher hanging on the wall. My mom bought one for me the next week, like some kind of totem to ward the nightmares off. Letting only the good dreams in, she said. Like a sieve.

When I used to see Edward in my room at night, I thought it was another one of those same dreams. That within a few stretched-out seconds of dream-time he'd be doing something horrible to me and I'd be screaming my lungs out and Charlie'd come running. And I still had dreams now. Still had nightmares.

(Like the cross hanging on the master bedroom's wall. Really helped keep the sanctity of their marriage together, obviously.)

Back in Arizona, for one of my birthdays I'd gotten what I'd always asked for, a canopy for my bed. Blue gauze, pale blue like a foggy sky, and made to hang from the ceiling without a postered bed, provided somebody in the house was handy enough with a hammer and nails to get it up there. Charlie never got around to it, and my mother wouldn't ruin the paint. It makes you wonder why they even bought the thing. Mom at least kept the box it came in, tucking it away in the closet on a top shelf where it never came to light again. But that was supposed to serve the same purpose, in some weird corner of my little girl brain, like a mosquito netting to keep the dreams off. Or to keep the good dreams in. Pale silk. The blackness in my bedroom hung over me, except for the little bit of moonlight that crept in the window. Like a breath of snow.

Fairy-light, like a veil. A _wedding_ veil, something in me said nastily, and another barbed thorn of pain went into me and I turned over, burying my face in the pillow. _(Maybe I could suffocate myself.)_ Just as suddenly, another thorn gouged into me - an idea.

I rolled out of bed, in a tangle of long legs and long tee shirt, and when my feet hit the cold floor I winced. Padding across the cold floor by feel alone - stumbling and hitting my bare shins against something sharp and hard in the dark. I sobbed. Predictable. And then I came to it.

I tore the dreamcatcher from the wall, feeling the pathetic little _twang_ of leather tie straining against the twigs as it came free of the nail. There _were_ no good dreams any more, let me have the bad ones. This was stupid. Some stupid piece-of-crap cultural appropriation B.S., wasn't that just like my mom, and Charlie was only trying to be _nice-_

Whether it ended up in the wastebasket or on the floor, I couldn't tell and I didn't care. Back to bed with me, a little more satisfied.

Now it was 4:02. I really was going to be a zombie tomorrow.  
Shut my eyes tightly, curl over around a pillow, count my breaths, count sheep, something...

And I was out. Out fast. I don't do that. That was new.

I slept like a baby. And I dreamed.

* * *

A.N. So, how was that? My writing style wants improvement badly, and I need to work on my flow, but I actually really like where this is going. It won't just be the stereotypical ~mystical symbolism-riddled dreams of Edward~, either. (Just to share a secret- I actually really liked how the movies pulled off her dream sequences, especially the one with vintage-horror Edward. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. More like that than frolicking in a sparkly field of roses. Hot damn, would that ever hurt.)


	2. Viens Avec Moi

(( A.N.: Italics abuse! I'm sorry, devotchkas and malchicks, but this took a weird as heck turn from when I got the first plotbunny. I'm not sure how far AU I'm going to take this, but any suggestions of how far I should go would be greatly appreciated. On with the show! ))

* * *

In my dreams, I'm fleeing something. Or chasing someone. A sprawling plasticky theme park like a juvenile detention facility designed by Ronald McDonald. A summer camp, not as a grown counselor but as just the oldest child, defending against an intruder. While they make no sense, and never have made a lot of sense, they had a kind of softness around the edges that this dream didn't. Painted in in broad strokes. This one was sharp as HDTV and that set me reeling - sights and smells assaulted me as soon as my vision came around. Not much of a dream for that.

I was lying on a hospital couch. Fair enough, dream what you know. It even smelled like a hospital, the reassuring beep of monitors peeping through the white-noise hush, don't-disturb-the-poor-girl-she's-had-a-long-day quiet.

I stood up, and it felt so real - head reeling included - that on instinct I put my hands down to smooth my hospital gown back down. _(Yeah, whoops, wouldn't want to _flash_ someone in this big abandoned building...) _But there wasn't one, I wore real clothes, distinct and smooth against my hands. I looked around for a mirror. In dreams mirrors rarely work like the real deal. And true to form, there wasn't one.

I looked down at myself.

Okay, you know I try to keep the language under control, but holy **shit**. My dreams about that night and the days that followed have kept to a weird kind of formula, even if they've ended differently. I gasp my last breath in his arms, shuddering like my limbs are on fire. Edward takes James' side and between the two of them they tear me apart. I die. But this is new.

The clothes I'd actually worn that day at the dance studio were half-shredded by day's end; the Cullens had to help me dress or I wouldn't look like I'd fallen through a window but like somebody'd shoved me in the middle of a gang fight. These were _not_ those clothes. More old-fashioned, a dress that reached mid-calf and had cap sleeves, buttons up the front. The dress was pale yellow. Like a bridesmaid's.

I looked down at my hands, and _then_ I looked over at the hospital bed.

Edward was lying there, and _he_ was the one in the hospital gown. Fast asleep.  
I would have been about ready to groan _(role reversal? really?) _if the mere sight of him didn't make my heart stop beating. I knew it wasn't real, but I wanted it to be so badly - I wanted to throw myself at him, to scream, to pummel him for leaving me. All like he was really here, and not just a stupid doll in a bed.  
His hair fell in his eyes a little, sweetly messy and the same dirty bronze I was used to. The shadows were lighter under his eyes, and he was just pale, not slate-white. Great, now my memories were lying to me, amending things to make them _prettier_. His eyelids were nearly translucent, and his long lashes like smudges of charcoal. I could see every detail of him so sharply, not just like he was in my mind's eye. Not a dim shape I could lose. I wanted to cuss at him for looking so peaceful. And all the way from over here I could smell his scent.

But the Cullens didn't sleep.

The hospital floor was cold, and I wasn't wearing shoes for some reason. (Dream logic, I guess.) I padded over to the hospital bed with the sense of unreality just pressing down on me. I'd get there and he'd look up at me, his eyes red, and I'd be dead. I'd get there and sit next to him and he'd open his eyes and smile, the dream would end, the end. Like my mind couldn't accept that _never meant never my God I needed him so bad-_

... but they didn't sleep. This wasn't right. I'm supposed to be the one in the bed. It's a stupid dream, and it doesn't have to make sense. I didn't just sit down next to him, I curled up on the hospital bed, my slender limbs almost draped over him. And I shut my eyes and willed it all to end.

And then I woke up, right? In my fake little dream tableau, you're right there where you want to be and then you wake up, and it's all taken away from you. Just once I wanted him to stay with me.

* * *

His chest was even rising and falling faintly. I don't know how long I laid there for until I realized it. But the Cullens didn't do _that_, either. I pulled back a little, almost startled, and this not-Edward opened his eyes.

"Isabel?"

On impulse, I answered him. _(Idiot.) _"It's Bella."

"You told me not to call you that." His voice had a weak laugh in it, and it sounded hoarser than usual. "Or Izzy. Looks like you're keeping watch now."

He sat up, very cautiously, and I had to shift myself or else fall off the bed. I was dumbstruck. He peeled back the blanket and all I could do was look at him - stupidly searching for what wasn't right. Because it was going to get real important really fast, I was pretty sure. He smelled right and his voice was the same, even if the words he was using weren't, but there was something different. Something wrong.  
There was an IV trailing from his arm, I realized incredulously. Carlisle wouldn't allow it, they'd probably blow up or something on contact with saline. I put my hand out to tug it free, but he stopped me.

"Leave that in for a while, it's fine. The doctors already think I got in a fight, I can't just walk out of here. Even if I wanted to..."

Beneath his blankets was the blocky shape of a cast.

If this had been a dream, that would be the point where my brain had an irony overload and I woke up screaming.

This wasn't right, I kept repeating in my head, like some kind of Captain Obvious broken record. No, no, _no_ this isnt right at _all_ so stop it before it starts -

This dream wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, and suddenly the feeling rose in my throat like I might actually _throw up_. How many times have I dreamed about what might have been? How many times have I clawed over those memories of Edward and the horrors of what happened with James and wished it could have gone another way - but not like this. Not **backwards.**

* * *

(( A.N.: Not much of a cliffhanger, I know, but even just writing this I got kinda shaken up. Bella can be slow sometimes, no? ))


	3. Waking The Witch

(( A.N.: Ugh, my formatting is utterly borked. People have been reviewing and that just makes me the happiest Xiphie in the world! Mostly because peeps seem to like it. I'd love to hear where people want this to go so I can take that into account. Also, the next chapter might get a little risque, just a warning. ))

* * *

My hand remained on his wrist, even as he pulled me away from the taped needle. I became aware that I could feel the pulse beating under his skin - the pulse that shouldn't be there. His skin yielded a little bit, even as I barely touched him. No longer like marble, like a cool river stone polished smooth by years and years of running water, but something malleable and soft and human. A human boy. Dream or not, it set my teeth on edge.

His voice sounded less fathomless. Normal.

"Izzy? Are you okay?"

"I'm- I'm fine, Edward, give me a second."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to force a deep breath. You're not actually supposed to pinch yourself. If you think you're dreaming. But I wasn't about to swat at myself to see if my hand passed through, like I was some kind of ghost in my own life. I had to touch him again, cupping his warm cheek in my hand. (I'd always had a hard time spanning the piano keys with these hands, It was more obvious than ever. His eyes were no longer gold, or even the coal-black of hunger that made him look at me like some kind of animal. They were hazel-green. A little echo in the back of my mind taunted with a non sequitur quote from _Jane Eyre_. Hazel eyes and hazel hair. His skin felt so warm, and I couldn't resist creeping closer. My skirt rustled around my legs.

His scent was so much stronger. Not the dim snatches I got on the air of what I was rapidly being disabused of thinking was a dream. Sometimes in waking life I caught a tiny breath of it on something he'd touched, or somewhere I'd seen him, and it hurt like a physical pain, knowing I'd never be held against him and flooded in it, that I might never, would never smell it again. Rich and dark, like some exotic flower I'd never seen before. And now it just bled out of every pore of him, and I could feel my mouth nearly watering.

I bent closer, intending to kiss him. I think I wanted to eat him.

He looked up at me, green eyes almost _glazed_. Didn't look like _my_ Edward, looked more and more like someone else, who'd stolen his face and his body and used them to taunt me. Hunger surged in the pit of my stomach, like I hadn't eaten in days. Not just in my core but in every part of me, and I looked at my small white hand on his vulnerable flesh and realized what I wanted to do.

"Isabel?"

I yanked away from him, more violently than I thought my body was capable of, and set off out the door, running. The only way I'd gotten out of the hospital was in a wheelchair, so I didn't know the way - I just ran, wild and blind. And fast. Before I could actually make it anywhere, someone caught me, in a grip like iron. It felt like running into a brick wall, stopping so abruptly.

_"Isabel,"_ Carlisle growled somewhere just above my ear, totally different from the gentle doctor I was familiar with. His hand on my shoulder was like a vise, but it didn't even hurt. "What happened in there? Mrs. Masen is waiting in the lobby for blood tests, you can't just walk out of here. And slow down." It took me a moment to realize his thumb was actually stroking my shoulder. Like someone trying to soothe a wild animal in a trap. I took a slow breath between my teeth, trying to calm myself and force down whatever had very nearly come over me.

"Dr. Cullen - Carlisle - I'm _so_ sorry."

"Ssh, ssh. Calm down." He leaned to look at me, smile apologetic. "I should have known that might shake you up. But he's going to be fine."

Terrified and utterly tongue-tied, I forced a little nod.

From around the corner bounded another familiar Cullen. It felt so _wrong_ to be seeing them at all, but still my heart just jumped. Alice hugged me like a sister - like a _real_ sister, not just the girl who was dating her brother - and quickly brushed some of the hair back from my face. (My hair was much, much longer here, at least to my lower back.)

"Hey, Bells," she said. "How's the invalid?" Apparently she misread the look on my face. "Is it bad?"

I stammered out, "No, no- Edward's fine, his mom's here. I... I think I should go home now."

* * *

To their house. Alice nearly dragged me to her car, a gaudy yellow Porsche, and I willingly sleepwalked the rest of the way to the Cullen home, utterly numb. I never thought I'd take this road ever again, see this house ever again, and even the garage full of cars and familiar wet air _(even the air tasted the same, this was no dream)_ couldn't shake me out of my daze. I'd only ever been inside the Cullen home as a guest. I'd thought about returning after the _real_ Edward had run away from me, breaking in and doing something stupid like trashing the place or going all Romeo and Juliet in his room. My concept of the layout was vague at best, but it seemed to go unnoticed.

The place always seemed empty, white and empty. Especially now. Of course, the only people living in it are dead. With nothing to do but clean and clean and make everything look like an interior decorator's w- best dream, and the outside look like a gardening catalogue. None of the other Cullens were home. After the terms we parted on in the real world, I don't think I could have faced Jasper again. Even though I knew... that if Edward was in my place, and I was in his, that his bedroom wouldn't be there... I crept upstairs.

I couldn't bring myself to open the door. I had to lock myself in the bathroom.

* * *

(( A.N.: So the plot thickens. I'm not ashamed to say that imagining how Edward must smell now made me insanely hungry... mmm. ))


End file.
